Eighty one per cent of GCC companies will increase their document management budget in 2011, while the rest will maintain it the same, according to a survey.

Organisations are finding that document management solutions lower the cost of storing and managing the growing piles of paper-based records while improving document retrieval and disaster recovery capabilities, said the survey commissioned by Xerox, the leading document management solutions provider.

The survey conducted by Panaly Consulting and commissioned by Xerox involved senior management in over 120 SMB businesses in the GCC from various industry sectors.– banking / finance, healthcare, education media/advertising, manufacturing and government.

Xerox investigated how and why organisations were deploying document management solutions to contain costs and realize other business benefits critical in achieving a solid path towards economic recovery.

The volume of documents exchanged between employees in any organisation, has rendered keeping track of them an impossible fete for any single business unit or department to deal with.

What was once the responsibility of IT, records management, or legal departments, is now a focal point for many GCC businesses, particularly those dealing with high volumes of documents—both hardcopy and digitally.

The study revealed that only 8 per cent of businesses manage their documents digitally while 72 per cent manage their documents both digitally and paper based. Furthermore 56 per cent of the respondents’ said that they print more than 50 pages a day, while 28 per cent stated that they are required to print more than 150 pages a day for office use.

In order to stay competitive, executives assert that they are utilizing document management processes like document imaging, which helps improve regulatory compliance and reduce costs and physical space required for paper-based records.

“Today, almost every organization has to deal with a growing pile of paperwork.  In order to manage the increasing amount of documents and information, it is imperative to have an innovative and efficient system that allows easy storage and quick search along with efficient retrieval facilities,” said Dan Smith, general manager for integrated marketing, Xerox, MEA (DMO).

“As any organization’s survival is 100 per cent reliant on data, the management of this data—whether it derives from a hardcopy, a blog, and email, or online—is integral to success and growth,” added Smith.

The study also found that about 40 per cent of businesses did not fully understand what the complete benefits of a document management system are.  For those businesses that were familiar, 39 per cent stressed the importance of trusted brands as their provider of choice for document management solutions followed by flexibility (29 per cent) as being the second most important factor when making their purchase decision.

Only 11 per cent of IT professionals consider ‘pricing’ to be the primary factor affecting their IT purchase decision. This is understandable considering that effective knowledge and information sharing is vital to any organization to help businesses manage and distribute information faster and more efficiently, the survey said.

“There is a significant requirement in the GCC for an affordable DMS solution with a user friendly interface for small or medium level businesses,” Smith said.

“We expect to see at least two trends emerge in the next three years where organizations will consider outsourcing document management activities more and the adoption rate of document management solutions will increase consistently,” he added. – TradeArabia News Service